Deep Within
by ncfan
Summary: What the other Horsemen saw in the mind of Apocalypse, and what came afterwards. [Set during 'Ascension.']


I own nothing.

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**1.**

Ororo Munroe had the dubious honor of being the first person she knew of to actually _hurt_ Apocalypse. Even if the lightning strikes had been nothing more than as the bite of an insect, she had hurt him. Ororo could see pain in his face, and though normally she took no pleasure in hurting others, knowing what Apocalypse was planning and what he had done, she felt a shoot of vicious satisfaction to see him flinch. If he was to have but a taste of pain, then let him taste it.

But what he did to her was far worse than anything she could have done to him.

She found herself stripped of all will and volition, torn apart to her atoms and remade in the image of Apocalypse. She was no longer Ororo, nor Storm, but only a Horseman, an instrument of Apocalypse's will. Apocalypse could not destroy her; he could kill her, but he could not touch the spirit within her body. That was inviolable, even to one who so readily imposed his will upon others. However, though her spirit still inhabited its body, the link between her will and her flesh had been broken. Ororo was only vaguely aware of what was going on outside.

The mind of Apocalypse reminded Ororo of nothing quite so much as the streets of Cairo—fascinating in its own way, beautiful at times, but brimming with the detritus of avarice and overweening pride. It would all come to nothing, Ororo was sure. She had faith her friends, faith in her nephew, whom she knew was fighting to destroy the base that she as Apocalypse's Horseman was tasked to defend. But the power he possessed…

Ororo's memory of that power lingered long after she felt Apocalypse's influence leave her.

She understood how the denizens of ancient Egypt could have taken En-Sabah-Nur for a god. What was a god, after all, but a being whose might dwarfed that of normal humans? Even before merging with Rama-Tut's technology, all others appeared _small_ before Apocalypse; even powerful mutants of the modern day paled in comparison. Apocalypse walked, and the earth trembled under the weight of his steps. He looked at the world and saw a field lying fallow, waiting to be cultivated—all in his image, of course.

Even when she had been hailed as a goddess, Ororo had never fancied herself such. She may have been a weather-witch, but she was no god; the world may have denied mutants their humanity, but she knew herself to be only human. All of this Ororo knew the way she knew her own heart; that did not change the fact that, for a short time, she had tasted divinity. As a horseman of Apocalypse, she was not just a weather-witch, but a conduit for every last force of nature. Lightning was in her veins. Her blood sang with the song of the world.

She knew she could have that again, if she searched long enough for it. But Ororo knew also that she would have to throw humanity away, if she ever wished to again taste divinity. She was happy enough that her body had remembered its humanity, and she could go home to those she loved.

**2.**

When Mystique was a child, she had loved listening to fairy tales. It was embarrassing to admit that now; she'd honestly been a stupid kid, swallowing that stuff like she had. (And if she was trying to knock that same kind of stupidity out of the Brotherhood, who were they to complain if her methods were harsh? Life was cruel; surely those kids, with the sort of lives they'd led, already knew that.) When she was a little girl with her family, when she was on her own and before she grew up and figured out how useless fairy tales were, she loved every last fairy tale she heard.

For some reason, the tales that stuck in Mystique's head the most were stories that involved statues somehow. The tale of Lot's wife, who was turned into a pillar of salt for looking back upon the destruction of Sodom, was the earliest, told in church by the pastor who had such a manic gleam in his eyes. Mystique vaguely recalled her parents gaping in horror at the idea that their young daughter had just heart tell (with _no_ sugarcoating) of Sodom and Gomorrah's iniquity, but once Mystique heard the part about Lot's wife, memory of every other part of the sermon flew from her head.

Why, she had wondered, did God turn Lot's wife into a pillar of salt? Sodom had been a dangerous place to live, but it had still been the woman's home for what must have been years. Was it so wrong for her to want to get one last look at her home before it was destroyed? And if Lot's wife was to be punished for looking back on Sodom, could God not have chosen some less permanent punishment, like blindness until she repented?

At least the other stories made more sense. King Midas was granted any one wish, and he wished that everything he touched might turn to gold. He enjoyed his new power at first, until he realized that "everything" extended to his food… and his daughter.

Trolls turned to stone in sunlight because it was in their nature to do so. People who broke faith with fairies and spirits or angered them in some way might be turned to stone because they'd meddled in what they ought not to have meddled in.

It had been such a liberating feeling, when Mystique had realized that the world didn't play by these rules. (Though sometimes she wished she could turn Magneto into stone, for abusing her trust with Kurt and throwing her to the wayside years later.)

Maybe she shouldn't have dismissed all these stories, after all.

When Mesmero came to her with news that Rogue would play a vital part in the freeing of Apocalypse, Mystique had made sure that she and Rogue would get as much out of her agreement to help Mesmero as they could. Destiny had already alerted her to the fact that Mystique and Rogue's fates would intertwine, that the matter that bound them together would be of great importance. Mystique couldn't see anything more important than this.

Mesmero was an arrogant man; he didn't like having to enter into any agreement from a position of weakness. Mystique had taken a great deal of pleasure watching him grow increasingly impatient and snappish as they haggled over the terms for her cooperation. Finally, he had said that her position would be assured under Apocalypse's rule.

Her position would be assured.

Ha.

As much as it galled Mystique to admit it, she had to congratulate Mesmero on his wording.

After all, cold stone could never fall higher or lower in someone's favor, could it?

Neither could a mindless slave.

Mystique saw into the mind of Apocalypse, and decided almost immediately that she didn't like the man at all. Apocalypse had a _grand plan_ for elevating mutants, and Mystique had had more than enough of men with grand plans. Her own survival and benefit were Mystique's top priorities; screw the world at large.

Strangely enough, that seemed to be the way Apocalypse thought as well.

Apocalypse planned to turn all humans into mutants (and by "planned", he apparently meant that he was going to subject all humans to a process that would unlock the dormant x-gene; those who _survived_ would become mutants, and those who died wouldn't matter either way), but his plan always ended up with him as king of the hill. That was what Apocalypse wanted, to be able to lord it over a world full of mutants. He wanted a world made in his image.

He didn't care who he had to use or discard to make that happen. He drained all the extra personalities from Rogue's body and tossed her aside. When Mesmero ceased to be useful to him, Apocalypse abandoned him. People were only valuable to Apocalypse insofar as he could use them. Once he couldn't anymore, they weren't valuable, they weren't interesting, and they weren't worth his time.

Mystique was uncomfortably reminded of her own behavior.

She would have loved to be unable to draw parallels. She would have loved to be able to see none of her own behavior in Apocalypse, to say that she had never used or abandoned anyone the way he had. That wasn't true though, was it? Mystique had a lot of time wandering Apocalypse's mind in which to do nothing but think. For the most part, she thought about her kids.

She'd let that elderly Bavarian couple adopt Kurt when they found him at the riverside. Mystique had told herself that she didn't have the resources to raise a child, especially not one who would need to be kept hidden away from the prying eyes of the outside world. She'd told herself that she needed to keep him away from Magneto, and that the man would have a hard time explaining to the couple what he wanted with their blue, fuzzy baby without saying something that would make them call the police. But she had also made no attempt to contact the couple and explain to them what had happened. If they saw her shape-shift, if they saw the way her base form resembled Kurt's (if only in color), they likely would have believed her. She had made no attempt to contact Kurt before Xavier forced the issue.

She adopted Rogue because Destiny said that the girl would be important in the future; all the better to keep a close eye on her. All the same, Destiny was the one who'd actually raised Rogue, who had cared for and nurtured her and by all accounts seemed to genuinely love her. Destiny's surname was the one on all of Rogue's documents; the girl was known as 'Adler', not 'Darkholme.' Whenever Mystique made contact with Rogue, it was because she needed her for something, needed her to do something for her, or needed her to believe something that she likely would not have believed without "persuasion." It wasn't the behavior of a parent.

Freed from Apocalypse's control, Mystique found them just outside of the Sphinx. Her kids, leaning on one another the way siblings should. She tried to explain herself, struggling for the words to say that she was sorry (because when had she ever apologized for anything?), struggling for the words to tell them that she loved them (Because when had she ever told anyone, even Destiny, that she loved them?).

They turned their backs on her, and walked away.

Mystique watched bitterly as they left. Lot's daughters had never grieved when their mother was turned into a pillar of salt. She wondered if her children would have grieved if the same were to happen to her.

**3.**

Magneto would readily admit that his motives for combating Apocalypse were less than altruistic. He was not doing it because he thought that Apocalypse was an evil so great that he needed to deal with him personally. He wasn't doing it because he thought that Apocalypse was so great an evil that he needed to be stopped at any cost. Magneto's reasoning for drawing Apocalypse out for a fight was that, quite frankly, he did not suffer rivals gladly. Not at all.

Magneto had known for years that mutants and humans would never be able to peacefully co-exist. It was a pleasant dream, and he knew it to be a favorite of Charles's, but a dream was all it could ever be. Whenever humans saw something in others that they did not like, they tried to stamp it out. They made scapegoats out of minorities, blamed them for all their woes, even those not even tangentially connected to the people they oppressed. When the urge to oppress ran so deep in the human psyche, those who did not conform to the nebulous, ever-changing ideal could never be safe.

For that reason, Magneto had always planned to introduce the world to the existence of mutants on his own terms. He would have preferred to do so only after he was able to persuade at least most of the world's mutants to side with him, but after knowledge of the Sentinel project reached his ears, he knew he would have to force his hand. If he could not stop the Sentinels' construction, he could at least ensure that his fellow mutants _knew_ the dangers they faced, that when the government came for them, they would not find mutants unprepared for a fight.

(He did not, would never think that the U.S. president had done enough. The man had urged "caution" and "restraint", but those were empty words that he did not even bother to enforce. Arresting Trask simply wasn't good enough.)

The ultimate goal Magneto was working towards was a world where mutants would be able to live out their lives in the open without being afraid of being attacked or even killed for being who and what they were. Of course, that would necessitate putting mutants in charge; there was no other way to ensure that they would never again face the sort of intolerance they had always contended with. And yes, he did imagine himself as being the one in charge when this happened.

Nowhere in the plan was there room for Apocalypse.

Magneto did not suffer rivals.

Neither did Apocalypse.

Truth be told, it had been arrogant to assume that he would be able to easily overcome a mutant of Apocalypse's reputation. Magneto should have expected a longer, harder fight than what he had. He had supposed, in the back of his mind, that it would be better to face Apocalypse while he was still growing accustomed to being among the living once more and was still growing accustomed to all of the powers he'd taken from Rogue. Better to face him while he was still reeling.

If Apocalypse had been reeling, he did a good job of hiding it.

Magneto had done many dangerous things in his life, and he had found his life in peril even more often than that. Of course he had countenanced the possibility that he might _die_, but he had never imagined that it would come so swiftly, without more than a few moments to reconcile himself to the reality of his situation.

He thought about his children. As much as it surprised him, Magneto found himself thinking about Wanda and Pietro as his atoms were torn apart. He was glad that they weren't here to see this, that he'd sent Pietro back to Bayville and had never called on Wanda's help in the first place. They had already lost their mother, and had never had their sister to begin with. He was glad that they wouldn't have to watch this.

But instead of death, Magneto merely tasted defeat.

He found himself trapped within the mind of Apocalypse, privy to all its secrets but unable to escape. This might have been more galling than death, to become the tool of his enemy, his body nothing but a shell bound to the will of Apocalypse. His mind was filled with all of Apocalypse's knowledge, all of his plans…

Magneto saw the world as Apocalypse wished to make it. He would see realized a world where he ruled over a planet of mutants. Using the Eye of Ages, Apocalypse was to trigger a process that would unlock the dormant x-gene within the human population. Those who survived would be his subjects; those who did not would be of the dead, of no concern whatsoever. Apocalypse did not care how many died for him to achieve this dream. He saw it merely as a culling of the weak; nothing more, nothing less. The weak did not deserve to live in the shining world that Apocalypse would create.

A culling of the weak?

Somehow, Magneto could not help but cringe when he heard that term ringing in the corridors around him.

He would admit to have on occasion thought that those who could not pull their own weight had no place in his cause, in his plans. In retrospect, Magneto was not proud of those moments; he had seen the innocent weak preyed upon too much, and wondered how he could have slipped into the mindset of the tormentor so easily. _His_ world was to be a world where _all_ mutants could live their lives without fear, and he knew that not all mutants were granted great speed or strength or power by their mutations. Some had nothing but a vastly "inhuman" appearance; of those, even those with great speed or strength or power would always need brothers and sisters-in-arms, and the weaker among them would always need protectors. It was not their fault that their mutation had brought them many problems, and no benefits.

And Magneto would admit that there had been times when he thought that mutants would be better off if there were simply no more humans. These were not his better moments either; he had nothing against any human who had never done harm to a mutant, nothing against those humans who tried to support and shelter mutants. Beyond those fleeting moments, he had never wished death to the human race. If he used his power to wipe them out, what did that make him? History was not always kind to its subjects. He would be no better than those who had used their power to oppress and torment scapegoats and frightened, divided people, and that would be how he would be remembered.

Through the eyes of Apocalypse, he saw the potential logical conclusion of his own plans.

What a concept it was.

Eventually, against all his hopes, Magneto found his mind bound to flesh once more. The first thing to make him understand that this had happened was his realizing how horribly his head hurt. In all his time trapped in Apocalypse's mind, he had never felt pain. It wasn't just his head, either. He was sore from head to toe, extremities throbbing, muscles screaming. What had—

"Father?"

He opened his eyes to see Pietro and Wanda hovering over him, both of them, Wanda in particular, looking quite strained and tired. They stared down at him worriedly. Pietro shuffled his feet back and forth; Wanda fiddled with one of her rings.

_I never thought I would see either of you again_.

It was his children who helped him to his feet, who shored his tired body up and helped him walk to the waiting plane. His children, whom he had eventually abandoned when the cause consumed everything else and it became clear that he couldn't get things done commuting back and forth from Bayville. Leaving Pietro alone in that house had never been an easy decision to make. Having Wanda institutionalized had been the most difficult thing he had ever done (_There was another decision he had made as regards to his daughter that should have been much more difficult than it was, perhaps shouldn't have been undertaken at all, and that would have to be set to rights eventually_). It did not change the fact that he had _left_ them, again and again. Magneto had always been more of a visionary and a demagogue than he had been a father to his son and daughter. And yet they had come for him.

On the plane, Wanda surprised him further by throwing her arms around his neck, choking out, "We missed you," so hoarsely that he was sure he was the only one he could hear.

Behind her, Pietro frowned unhappily at his sister, and stared meaningfully at his father. _"This isn't over_," he seemed to say, and Magneto knew quite well what he meant. But Pietro stepped up and leaned in close to him, nodding. He swallowed hard, looked away out of over-bright eyes and muttered, "Yeah. We did."

There were many people who deserved this reunion more, and would never get it. Magneto had always been a man to measure his life by what he did not have and what he had not yet accomplished. But Erik Lehnsherr hugged his children, and for once, he counted his blessings.


End file.
